Why Were 8 Million Dog Mummies Buried Within The Catacombs Of Anubis?

In 1897 , mining railroad engineer and archaeologist Jacques de Morgan made a map of several catacomb at Anubis , North Saqqara , Egypt . On this map was the first modern quotation to aTomb de Chiens , or grave of the dogs . The name was somewhat of an understatement , for when the catacomb were investigated later on in 2015 , it was guess that they once contain 8 million dog mamma .

When the catacombs – builtaround 400 BCE – were explore , the main passage stretched 173 meters ( 568 feet ) , with several corridors branching off from it up to 140 meters ( 459 groundwork ) . Ninety percent of the remains uncover by the team were found to be click , though theyalso foundjackals , cats , mongooses , and slyboots .

The animals , many of which weretaken by grave robbersand used as plant food by industrialists , would have been given as as oblation to a god . In the casing of the Dog Catacombs , the gift were probable for jackal - headed Egyptian deity Anubis , in the Bob Hope of party favour or unspoiled fortune , or as thanks .

" Each mummy would be a symbolization of something a pilgrim had give as a gift to the god . So nowadays , mass go to a church and light a candle , " archaeologist and Egyptologist Salima Ikram toldNPR in 2015 .

" But the Egyptians were in for the long haul , so instead of a candle , they would offer a mummy . So clearly , this means that there were a luck of very religious hoi polloi out there who were demand Anubis for intervention and for aid for a variety of thing . "

Adding redundant ick to a story of cad ritual killing , the team believe that the animals were obtained for the purpose of sacrifice .

" The most probable scenario is that there were a series of puppy - farm located nearby , probably in Memphis and its surround , " theywrite in their newspaper , " from which most of the animals were sourced " .

Given the lack of written evidence , it ’s not know how the dogs stop up buried at the catacomb – whether pilgrim arrived at the temple and made a payment for a dog to be sacrificed and sink as an oblation , or whether they had to buy the dogs before arrival at the temple .

" Its life may have been extremely light but its journey to the afterlife was to be a good one and the afterlife was evermore , " the team adds . " The animal cult can not be viewed with twenty - first 100 sensibilities . "